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Doing Local Insertion into SWM system

I own and operate a local hospitality visitor channel in SW Florida that serves over 35 hotels in our area. Doing a local insertion into older analog Direct TV systems is not a problem for us using a modulator and playback unit to reside on a vacant channel in the hotel cable system. We are unable to do a local insertion into the newer SWM systems. Bulk TV, the local installer, has been unhelpful and unresponsive in assisting us. Can anyone out there explain how we can accomplish our local insertion into these systems?

Thinking about this, it could be a profitable idea for DirecTV. As part of the hotel package offer a module that could take a video input or several inputs and modulate them in a format that you could put it into a flexport on the SWM32. The receiver authorization for the hotel could then map those signals to open channels in the LiL area. This may be more difficult than it sounds but its just an idea. You could also probably sell it to residential users who have security cameras, that way you dont have to go to a computer or switch TV inputs to view your cameras.

Private networks are different from local insertion, as I'm sure peds48 knows.

If your SWM system does not use coax networking (as most commercial systems do not) it is possible to diplex in programming on broadcast frequencies and then break it back out with a splitter at the other end. Then you would just use the TV's antenna input to get that programming.

The trick is getting that content on the broadcast frequencies. In the old days we would use a cheap RF modulator. Today, if you want HD programming, it's a little harder. QAM and ATSC modulators are very expensive and generally depend on encryption.

As I said, if all you want is SD, it's not hard. Use a diplexer like an NAS STD-9501M (I will leave it to others to provide a link, or Google can be of help) or if you are using SWM8s, you can use the off-air port. Then put band stop filters (again, I will leave it to others to provide a link) at the connection points to every receiver. Put a SWM splitter before each receiver and run one cable to the TV's off-air in.

If you are using canned programming, you may want to look into upgrading to a DRE system which lets you do insertion of canned programming right into the guide. It does not let you insert live programming.

There are other options but they get progressively more expensive. If you want to continue this conversation, I can probably help you more efficiently through private messaging and am happy to do so.

Private networks are different from local insertion, as I'm sure peds48 knows.

If your SWM system does not use coax networking (as most commercial systems do not) it is possible to diplex in programming on broadcast frequencies and then break it back out with a splitter at the other end. Then you would just use the TV's antenna input to get that programming.

The trick is getting that content on the broadcast frequencies. In the old days we would use a cheap RF modulator. Today, if you want HD programming, it's a little harder. QAM and ATSC modulators are very expensive and generally depend on encryption.

As I said, if all you want is SD, it's not hard. Use a diplexer like an NAS STD-9501M (I will leave it to others to provide a link, or Google can be of help) or if you are using SWM8s, you can use the off-air port. Then put band stop filters (again, I will leave it to others to provide a link) at the connection points to every receiver. Put a SWM splitter before each receiver and run one cable to the TV's off-air in.

If you are using canned programming, you may want to look into upgrading to a DRE system which lets you do insertion of canned programming right into the guide. It does not let you insert live programming.

There are other options but they get progressively more expensive. If you want to continue this conversation, I can probably help you more efficiently through private messaging and am happy to do so.

Click to expand...

Of course I thought the TS wanted something that the satellite receiver could tune to and possibly show up in the guide whichis why I stated it was not possible with a SWiM based MFH-2 system.

Just getting the 'general public' to use their input button on their own purchased equipment and then mastering the mode settings on their clickers in their own homes can be quite the ordeal, having folks coming into a motel/hotel setting with a different brand TV and having them blip through the inputs and TV channels and satellite channels would be quite the headache for the staff.

When (if?) we get to the point of $100 HD ATSC and/or QAM modulators, this gets real easy, but for a system with a D* (or E* receiver) in every suite, I'd hate to be the one managing such a facility. Or worse, the maintenance grunt tasked with stopping by rooms all night long to get TVs off the 24 hour static channel.

Local Channel Insertion(LCI) is possible(up to 50 chs) on the new DRE-plus managed systems that use H-25 receivers in the guest rooms.
Extra rf/QAM modulated channels will not work as inputs to the H-25 receivers, but local content can be manipulated so as to be compatible with the format required by the Management Control Server(MCS), which inserts this data into the distribution scheme and it then shows up as a new channel. The LCI channel can be defined for the MCS and will show up in the guide listings.
There are several requirements for the Local Channel data :
---Mpeg4 H.264 video
---AAC audio stream. I think this conversion process is complicated and not widely used or easily available, but currently required.
---G.711/726 audio is not supported by DRE receivers
---all external devices(such as network cameras) must be multicast capable.
---All content is wrapped in RTP frames.

So now you know. It's a quantum leap in complexity compared to the old way.